Imaginings

One time in Quarantine Tribute Tips (a Philippine FB group I joined back when everyone was just trying to cope with all the restrictions and lockdown), someone asked what it felt like for people on the other side of the relationship who just up and leave like it was nothing. It did make me wonder if people can really be so unaware or blindsided? Or is that what, selective amnesia or successfully blocking those little moments leading up to the break?

In my last relationship, it was a struggle for me to speak up about what I wanted and what I was feeling but it was a sink or swim situation and so I did it, several times. I can remember almost exactly when I did them and what every rejection felt like. It was difficult, and I would clam up every time after as you do when you get burned, right? But it was necessary. And to do so several times, just for good measure, I guess. I didn't want to give up without being absolutely sure. It's just strange realising now how these moments, that if I pause for a while to reflect would become vivid images and feelings to me again, didn't even warrant a single memory to the other party. That they could be legitimately astonished that they could have caused or contributed to the shit storm that was your life back then. I guess on one hand, you could say it was a good thing that they didn't mean to hurt you and it was what it was? I am honestly completely okay now, have no grudges whatsoever, and while I acknowledge these things happened in the past, I don't see any good in dwelling in them. People aren't necessarily bad; sometimes you're just not good together.

I do wonder sometimes, though, if I had been this way to another ex and I feel like maybe I had been. It wasn't that I didn't love him, but I was young and an idiot. And it makes me want to reach out and apologise. But it also seems silly because that was eons ago and what good will it do, really?